The monitor also highlights that a minority of 42 states—the nine nuclear-armed states and 33 countries under a 'nuclear umbrella'—continues to reinforce these doctrines, with opposition particularly concentrated in Europe. However, specialists warn that today the problem is not just how much nuclear arms exist, but how many of those weapons are ready, modernized, and associated with more aggressive doctrines. SIPRI had already warned in its 2025 yearbook that the nine nuclear-armed states reinforced their arsenals and launch systems in 2024, while the United States and Russia continue to concentrate nearly 90% of the global total. China, moreover, appears as the actor with the fastest growth, with an estimated 600 warheads and a sustained expansion of its missile infrastructure. The report notes that this figure implies an increase of 141 available weapons from the previous year and consolidates a trend that, contrary to the post-Cold War disarmament narrative, shows the return of the nuclear issue to the heart of geopolitical competition. The paradox is that the total number of warheads remains far lower than in the worst years of the Cold War, when the planet surpassed 70,000. To this is added an increasingly harsh political climate: in recent weeks, France announced it will expand its arsenal and deepen deterrence cooperation with European partners; Finland moved to lift its historic legal ban on hosting nuclear weapons, though it clarified it does not plan to do so in peacetime; and in the U.S., the debate over possible nuclear tests resurfaced, although the incoming head of STRATCOM stated they see no technical need to resume them. Faced with this trend, the disarmament field is trying to resist with a broader political base, though still insufficient to change the behavior of the powers. The Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons already brings together 99 states as parties and signatories, with 71 full adherents and 25 signatures pending ratification by the end of 2025. None of the nine nuclear-armed states have joined. The latest report from the Nuclear Weapons Ban Monitor, presented in Geneva, confirms that almost all nine nuclear-armed states deepened the modernization of their strategic forces in 2025, increased their stockpiles, or announced concrete plans to do so. At the same time, India, Pakistan, and North Korea continue to develop new delivery systems, while Israel, though maintaining its traditional ambiguity, is also considered by experts to be a country in the process of modernizing its nuclear capability. The situation becomes even more delicate because the containment system that survived between the two major powers has been seriously damaged. The bottom-line conclusion is as simple as it is unsettling: the era of nuclear reduction has ended, and the world is once again living with a nuclear arms race less massive than the Cold War's but potentially more unstable. Its expiration left the two nuclear superpowers without a legal straitjacket and opened the door to new discussions about warheads, launchers, and possible inventory expansions. The world has entered a phase of retreat from nuclear disarmament and the renewed centrality of atomic weapons in the power logic of the main powers. The most alarming data point is not just the total number of warheads, but the increase in those already ready for use in short order, in an international context marked by the war in Ukraine, tensions in Asia, the crisis in the Middle East, and the deterioration of arms control mechanisms. According to the monitor prepared by the Federation of American Scientists and Norwegian People's Aid, at the start of 2026, the nine nuclear-armed states—the United States, Russia, China, France, the United Kingdom, India, Pakistan, Israel, and North Korea—possessed 12,187 warheads, of which 9,745 were available for military use. Of that total, 4,012 were already deployed in silos, mobile missiles, submarines, or bomber bases, meaning over 40% of the total operational arsenal. The contrast summarizes the current crossroads: while the global majority formally leans toward prohibition, the powers and their allies are moving in the opposite direction, with more deployment, more modernization, and fewer limits. The New START treaty, the last bilateral agreement that imposed legally binding limits on the deployed strategic arms of Washington and Moscow, expired on February 5, 2026. Geneva, March 27, 2026 - Total News Agency - TNA -.
